|
|
1. What's it like to do tap? It's fun and you can get exercise from it.
2. Do you enjoy tap? Yes, I like moving around to the music. I get a happy feeling when I do it. The outfit is comfy, and I like the sound of the tap shoes.
3. What is your favorite move? A buffalo. Steps: Jump on left foot, shuffle right foot, jump on right, put left up.
4. What's your least favorite step? Ball, heel, change. Step: Right foot forward, left leg up, left leg down, right foot up, right foot down, left leg down.
The History of Tap
Tap began in the 1840s in America by Africans, but it was banned, so they clapped and tapped their hands and feet to make sounds. Africans mixed clog dancing and European step dancing. They used to just do foot movements, but added ballet steps, acrobatics, and arm movements. Irish dancing influenced tap in America. In the early 1900s, tap dancers began wearing metal taps on their shoes. Metal makes a sharper sound than wood. Tap took over America in the mid-1920s. In the 1920s, uniforms, hats, and canes were used, and now they are used again. Soft-shoe dancers used to pour sand on a stage before a performance. The most common tap is classical tap which uses upper body steps blended with steps from ballet and ballroom dancing. Now tappers perform to a lot of different musicˆor no music at all.
The Benefits of Tap
Tap builds fun, exercise, muscle control, rhythm control, rhythm movements, and aerobic fitness. Tap lessons help improve dancers, actors and singers' performances. Tap brings routine ideas to figure skaters and gymnasts.
Learning Tap
Dancers use their feet like drums to create rhythmic patterns. Tap dancers mostly make sound with the metal taps on the toes and heels of their shoes, each tap having a metal ring inside that jingles with each heel tap. Tappers link together moves, like basic patterns to create tap routines. Tap dancers learn foot steps and then add the arm and hand movements. Students add new moves to their repertoire after reviewing old moves. Tap teachers listen for clean, crisp tap sounds and watch for proper foot, leg, hand and arm positions. Dancers improve by improvising their own tap steps, copying tap sounds and borrowing steps by watching and hearing other tappers and dancers. Teachers usually listen for each tap dancers' tapping sounds and show them the proper movements. Tap dancers must stretch before every performance, rehearsal or class. Tap dancers usually take lessons at studios. When tap dancers know a lot of steps and routines, the teacher might have a recital for the individual dancer or for the class. Tap dancers should practice every day, no matter what.
Other Tap Facts
Tap skills are used in plays, films, and musicals. Tappers perform classic tap smoothly moving their hands and arms. Hoofers focus on percussive footwork with little upper body movements using their shoes to make drum-like sounds. Soft-shoe dancers don't have metal taps. They have leather shoes that make shushing rhythm and slower style of tap. Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Ann Miller, and Debbie Reynolds all helped make tap popular in movies in the 20th century. Savion Glover is a famous tap dancer of the 1990s. He started a new era in tap dancing that combined athletic and hip-hop tap style. This is a
picture of an African women holding a fruit basket.
Africans started Tap dance.
|
